Hey guys, your head mod Laena here mostly back and writing these things up again. Lots of things to discuss both mod and game fronts, so please read everything. Or at least the thing under IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT. It's last so that all game stuff is handled first.

» CALENDARHere are the dates you should know for the rest of the month. The main calendar spreadsheet can be found here.

Love is in the air~ This breezy, sunny feeling means love is in the air~~~ Check out all the flower petals and hearts that float around~ The bubbles that abound~ And the want to sing your heart out loooouuuddd~~

It's spring time and the Flower Festival effects are still in play, have fun.

» EMOTION TRACKER UPDATEAs always, it's kind of early to tell where the Emotion Tracker is going.

As a reminder, this is just a "mid-month" check to give everyone an idea of where the Emotion Tracker stands. If you haven't had a chance to submit your threads, don't worry! You can still fill out the main survey here and the Flower Festival survey is here. You can still submit now and have it count for the final tally at the end of the month.

Here is the screenshot for this month so far:

Mid-month is always negative, though -80? Looks like it's being mostly dumped on Sosyne, too. But! We haven't had any submissions from the Flower Festival yet, so that's definitely bound to change.

» DISCORD SERVERFor those of you who use or at least heard of the chat program called Discord, we have set up a chat server for the game. Everyone thank Kyo for his help because while some of us use it, we're no experts. And before I continue, let me just say this important thing (in bold and underline!):

You are not required to use Discord or join the server.

We know some folks don't use it for one reason or another, just like not everyone uses Plurk. But we also know that there are a lot of our players who do and have wanted one for the game. So consider this just another way to communicate with other players, particularly those you may not have friended on Plurk.

Additionally, we have no idea how much use the server will actually see, so we'll kind of see how it goes for a couple of months, adding and removing things if needed. In the meantime, however, click this invite to access the server, read the guide Kyo wrote (another round of applause), and chat away in #general-chat.

If you don't have Discord but curious to see how the server looks without downloading the app, Discord does have a web browser version that has all the same functionalities as the app. This includes getting notifications and pings. Just choose to Open Discord in your browser and voila.

» FLOWER FESTIVALThe Flower Festival is officially over and by all account is a success! The land where the festivities were held is thriving even more and hopefully it will spread farther out. As to any other effects regarding it—we can't actually say!

Without any Emotion or Pebble Tracker submissions, we cannot really gauge what other effects will occur as a result of festivities. Fortunately, it's not so time sensitive that we have to discard it completely! So SUBMIT!

Until then, the island of Empatheias will feel rather warm and cozy for the next few weeks with the effects from before still carrying over:

Love is in the air. Literally. It's as if all the love from down below managed to make its way back onto the island. But there are little pink, heart shaped bubbles that are just floating all through the city. When they pop, they release a pleasant cherry and strawberry aroma that just makes anyone in the immediate vicinity feel happier and nicer.

Flower trails. Doesn't matter if you're actually feeling positive or not, prepare to have a trail of flowers blooming after every footstep—including indoors! They're also persistent, not disappearing until several minutes afterward.

Flowers everywhere. Not only are all the flowers blooming during this time (pity those with allergies), but they are also starting to pop out of the top of houses, windows, and doors. Verens is really turning into a flower village.

We do have a lot more planned, so we need those submissions to see how far we go! Even if we can't get it all out before the end of the month, we can incorporate it in the May intro log. So please submit!

» OTHER ELIOS THINGSAs we also mentioned in the festival, certain developments will springboard a few adventure opportunities. While these must be player initiated, here are the possibilities that anyone is free to form a group and take up on.

Scoping out the area. As hinted throughout the festival, there are a lot of other interesting sights and locations that could be visited. Further investigation around Diateris is also available.

What's up with Elios? We won't spoil things here, but the five who have spoken with Elios during the festival will want to alert the community and may want to go out and find him. Although a rep was part of the pool, you all may want to coordinate with one another to see who wants to bring it up.

We will of course give all the information needed, and in both these situations, plot related things will be given out, so we highly encouraged those interested to try and do at least one of them! You can consider these adventures as important for plot purposes, so yes! Please take initiative (otherwise we'll have to turn it into a mod run thing and that's less fun).

» TIME FOR TEMPORARILY CLOSING APPS? (FOR EXTENDED PLOTS)The game has grown, which is both great, but it does make trying to cram major plots in and not trample on growing number of player plots difficult, especially with consideration of newcomers. So we'd like to get some feedback as to when would be a good time to temporarily close apps so that we can do some extended plots and keep things rolling at a decent pace.

Our currently looking to close apps either on June or July. So if we close them in June, the last app cycle would be May and then they won't reopen until July. If it's July, they will only open on June and August. In terms of application periods, the two periods before and after (so May and July, for example), would be extended to cover 7 days each. This is to make up for the lost time period.

We do foresee doing this kind of thing again in the future, but appropriately spaced out and depending on how things happen ICly.

So having said that, we'd like to hear back from you and what you'd like! June may be a little too soon, although assuming the Elios things happen, would fall nicely timeline wise. However we can still make it work for June/July instead. Please comment to this post with your feedback! Otherwise, we'll have to make the call ourselves.

» IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING YOUR HEAD MODFinally, it's time to discuss the really important thing. First of all, for those who are not familiar with who I am, I am Laena, the founder, creator, and head mod of this game. Since February I've been on hiatus due to "vague" health reasons. In fact I kind of just up and disappeared, and for that I apologize. However, when you have a little baby developing in your womb, that first trimester can be a real bitch and honestly RP and everything internet wise was the last thing on my mind. Now that I'm starting the second trimester, things are improving, if still a little eeeehhn, which is why I'm still kind on and off.

So now that the cat's out of the bag, this is what you guys need to know. Assuming the pregnancy goes well and no complications occur, my due date is in late October, and I will be honest and say that I will be removing myself from the game at that time. That means I will stay on until then, but I will be unable to commit any time for a while. I also do not know if I will come back even after a couple of months so for now it would be best to consider that time as also my date of retirement.

What does that mean for the game? Just that it needs a new mod team. Game life wise, I have no plans in forcing it to end early just because I'm not around. In fact, assuming that there is still player interest and activity going on, the game's plot can continue on for another year, possibly into 2019. The game is designed to have an end, just how long and how it gets there is still flexible. Regardless, I will have everything written out and outlined for those taking my place so that they will have a guide to follow. (It'll be very thorough I can assure you.)

» SEEKING NEW MODSSo if you are interested in becoming part of a new mod team, just follow this link for the application. We are not asking for any new head mods, just at least 2-3 people willing to be "main mods" to help deal with all aspects in running the game, such as doling out plots, handling player issues, and other maintenance. Basically full-time mod, not helper. You will have some vets on hand to help, including Ryn who has volunteered to come back as part of the main mod team (though you guys probably have noticed her while I was gone, anyway lol). The reason why I'm asking now is so I can also help coach and just make sure everyone is comfortable and settled, especially after a few months.

And I think I've addressed everything. I know this is kind of big news, but I wanted to be upfront and let everyone know what to expect.

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And that's about it! If you have any questions, concerns, or want things clarified, just comment to this post.